Level 10 - Plane of Night


Quest Giver: Barrow d’Kundarak, though the quest actually advances from inside part 5.
Level: 10 Raid
Patron: House Kundarak (5/10/15)
Length: medium
Entry Point: through the gate at the end of VoN 5
Prereqs: Must be on this portion of the quest to enter. Can only enter through the entrance at the end of VoN5.
Recommended Party: 3 strong melees, 2 clerics, 1 caster. The rest is gravy, baby. But lots of gravy is a good thing! Bards make the best gravy, by the way. Let’s kill a dragon!
Base Experience:
Quest Info:
--Creatures: ice flensers, earth elementals, air mephits, and a red dragon named Velah.
--Traps: none, unless you walk behind the rocks or into the fire spouts, those kinda feel like traps

Walkthrough:

Okay, so first off, tell everyone to hold still at the entrance. Run straight up to the dragon. Be careful not to walk off the bridge. If you fall off, you are done. Hello marketplace.

Now start calling over the crew one by one. Reason for this is that if more than one person is on the bridges out there at the same time, Velah gets all upset and starts launching epic fire balls of bridge breaking. And that’s really bad. (This is considered a little over cautious nowadays, as Velah doesn't seem to mind too much if people approach her. But if you get extra people together on the circling bridges, thats when the really bad news starts.) Once everyone is up here, you begin the process of lowering the barrier, by destroying the three pillars at the three outer islands.

Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, the old method of ‘running the bases’ and clearing out all the respawning elemental guards by running them back to the beginning is obsolete. New strategies are being made, but here is one that is working so far, if you have a couple of rangers with you, or anyone with a construct bane bow.

You can position an archer down the ramp and out on the bridge, about halfway to an island. From this position they should be able to shoot the back pillar. The Side pillars are hittable from the center point. From this positioning get all three pillars to about 5-10% ‘life’ Any further and they will all regenerate. When you have them all prepped, hit the multi shot button and drop them all quickly at the same time. The barrier will drop, and everyone moves in to the small stretch of bridge inside the old gate.

(Also, clever use of bard fascinate on the islands can work well. Or just sturdy fighters with the ability to solo the 3 ice flensers, air mephit princes and earth elementals. Just remember, the respawn is very very fast. Oh, Flesh to Stone can be nifty here, too.)

Buff everyone with whatever ya got. There are a few methods of taking out Velah, but I am just gonna go with my favorite here. CHARGE!!! Have a high reflex save person lead the way, and as soon as she wing buffets have the rest follow in and stand right under her belly. Clerics unload group heals while every attacks like fools. Weeee. Dead dragon and loot for everyone! C’mon boots!

If you are lower level, or higher difficulty, this strategy may not be the wisest. The 'hero' method, of sending just a couple of melees while everyone else focuses heals also works well.

Just remember, if you step out of Velah's line of sight, by hiding behind the rocks, she will start summoning all sorts of badguys to take you out. Generally people avoid going back there, rather than trying to come up with ways to deal with loads of extra mobs in exchange for cover.

End Reward: standard loot choices. Be sure to remember to pick up your end reward to start the timer on when you can next run the quest.